Evening, everyone. First diary on DK5. Been a long time since I’ve been up top around here. Volunteered the night of ‘ace’s WYFP memorial. His loss is still unbelievable. So, I guess to start, I raise a glass to Adam.
Second, I stole the intro image from annieli. Thanks, annie.
And, then, let’s see… What is my *@#^in’ problem? I used to write about my mom on occasion. I think ’ll go back there. In regards to her, looking back a few years just proves that what I thought were FPs were just pre-FPs. Proto-FPs, if you will. She’ll be 92 in a few months, and we’ve gotten to the point where we’re just playing whack-a-mole with her health issues. We get the ulcers under control, and her back goes out. Get her UTI medicated and her heart goes wack. Get her blood pressure down, and suddenly her kidney is enlarged. “It’s terrible to be old!” she snaps, on occasion.
It’s all manageable, but it’s so hard to watch her realize that she will likely never be really well again. Her heart will always scare her. The ghostly, shifting pains will never again completely stop. Her arthritic knee will catch and make her grimace ‘til she dies.
And her mind… She is forgetful to the point of making me afraid sometimes. Will she put the kettle on to boil and forget it? Will she over-medicate and fall? She’s started believing that she’s going to win any one of the many sweepstakes that prey on those who don’t have the faculties to know that they’re being robbed. She hoards her junk mail. Thinks people are stealing from her. Talks the bank out of counter checks, and orders whatever powdered yak hoof capsules the scam catalog has told her will help her joint health. We both get tired of me confiscating these things.
She’s very bright and chirpy about all of these crazy things. Talks about it all like it’s the most normal thing in the world to send 3 one dollar bills to the Save the Three-legged Dog Foundation, so they can send her the $10,000 check they’re holding in her name. Totally going to happen. My sister and I have decided that, as long as she doesn’t overdraw the special small account that we’ve set up for her, it’s her money, and she can roll it up and smoke it, if she wants to.
She lives in a wonderful retirement community, where she has been living independently in her own apartment on the 7th floor, with a great view, but it’s really, really time for her to move to the next level of care. However, I just know that making that move will start the final downward spiral. She and dad moved into her current apartment in 1988. For nearly 30 years, it has been her home. When she moves, I will hope for the best, and plan for the inevitable.
We go to the doctor. I help her out of her clothes and into the gown. She sits on the end of the exam table, chilled. Resigned. We chat a bit to cover our anxiety and discomfort, until we run out of words, and her mortality fills the silence.
And, if I may ask, what’s *your* f*@%in’ problem?